0 EC
Semester 2, period 4, 5, 6
5292ACSK0Y
| Owner | Pre-master Information Studies |
| Coordinator | ir. Loek Stolwijk |
| Part of | Pre-master Information Studies, year 1 |
The premaster Academic Skills offers an introduction in the basics of the academic way of thinking.
The course will focus on academic research, the basic assumptions of the researcher, the methods used and the way of reporting the results of the research. An important part of the course is dedicated to statistics as the foundation for doing quantitative research.
The students are supposed to study the material by themselves. Instead of lectures and tutorials there will be weekly online meetings to discuss topics of the course with fellow students. The discussions will be moderated by members of the university staff.
The course consists of three components:
1 the basics of academic research (reading and discussing 6 articles on research)
Read the articles in this section on Canvas. The content of these articles will be part of the exam.
2 the basics of statistics (studying onlinestatbook.com)
In this section you will learn the basic statistics knowledge that you will need to practice research succesfully.
In this course we strongly recommand making use of four resources:
In the module Basic Statistics on Canvas you will find a list of topics based on onlinestatbook that will be part of the exams. The Kahn Academy online resources and Business research Methods and Statistics using SPSS are not part of the exams but can be very helpful in understanding onlinestatbook lessons. This overview also holds a link to the the course weeks (1-7) . It is recommended to use this as a guideline for the progress of your study.
3 assignments on different subjects (writing 3 essays)
There will be 3 assignments. Detailed information on the assignments will be provided in the Module Essays assignment.
assignment 1: Find at least one scientific article that seems highly relevant to you regarding theoretical models for acceptance of information technology. Submit a short paper in which you provide the author, year of release and title of the article, and a brief motivation for you choice. You have been assigned a UvAnetID that will give you access to the university library http://lib.uva.nl/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=UVA
assignment 2: Combine research themes with theoretical models within the field of Information Studies. Write a short paper in which you deal with the issues & questions based on two articles given in the course details and link the issue to a theoretic model.
assignment 3: Review a published article. Write a paper in which you (critically) review an article of your own choice regarding a topic within the field of Information Studies
Each assignment will be marked P(ass) or F(ail)); All assignments should be marked P to be allowed to participate in the final exam.
The basics of academic research and statistics will be part of the exams.
Quizzes (see Week Modules)
The objectives of the course are:
· To be able to apply basic statistical knowledge about measurement levels, measures of central tendency, correlation, probability and distributions, and more advanced subjects as hypothesis testing, measures of association and variance analysis
· to explain what deductive and inductive research methods are.
· to explain what Quantitative and Qualitative research methods are, and how they complement each other.
· to identify interesting research themes.
· to recognize the difference between working in a problem solving setting versus doing scientific research.
· to place their findings in context of generalizability.
· to identify interesting research themes.
· to determine the quality and the relevance of academic articles given a certain context.
· to combine research themes/areas with theory and reflect on the possible application of the theory on a chosen topic.
· to be able to critically review a scientic article
The course has no lectures or tutorials. The students have to master the content by themselves.
It is recommended to do the Quizzes as they are offered on Canvas.
Every week there will be an online meeting to support your self-study by discussing topics and reviewing the progress of the students. Students will be invited to online meetings by email. In this email you will be provided with a weblink to access the online meeting and an overview of the topics to be discussed. Prior to the meeting you can send the topics or questions you want to address by email to the moderator.
The course material itself will be offered via Canvas. The material consists of literature to be reviewed , the assignments on different topics, online statistic resources and quizzes.
|
attending online meetings |
2 hours/week |
|
self study, quizzes, writing essays, preparing for exams |
18 hours/week |
Additional requirements for this course:
There is no obligation to attend the online meetings
| Item and weight | Details |
|
Final grade | |
|
1 (100%) Digitale Toets |
At the end of the course Academic Skills there will be an online exam. You will pass the exam if the grade is 5.5 or higher (on a scale of 0-10).
You have to hand in essays in week 4, 5 and 6. The essays need to be evaluated with a PASS to be allowed to do the online exam.
There will be a possibility for a resit of the exams only once.
Contact the course coordinator to make an appointment for inspection.
See the section Content above.
Prior to uploading the final version of the assignment, you can upload a draft version for inspection.
The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl
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Topic |
Recommended Time Schedule |
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Basic of Statistics
|
Week 1: chapter 1-4 |
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Basics of Academic Research
|
Week 1-3: Read Articles |
|
Assignment 1: Finding relevant academic articles |
Week 3: upload draft Week 4: Finish this assignment |
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Assignment 2: Combine research themes/areas with theory |
Week 4: upload draft Week 5: Finish this assignment |
|
Assignment 3: Review a published academic article |
Week 5: upload draft Week 6: Finish this assignment |
The schedule for this course is published on DataNose.
A closed facebook group is available for the course. It’s an informal platform to discuss and exchange information related to the course. Facebook can also be used to put forward questions to the course coordinator Loek Stolwijk . You have to send a request to join the facebook group. To be able to make use of this group you need to have a facebook account. The facebookpage can be found at https://www.facebook.com/groups/135839364026773/